Page 5 - Guadalupe of Mexico in Spain

Section 03. Icon and divine brush

The Eternal Father painting the Virgin of Guadalupe
Attributed to Joaquín Villegas (act. c. 1713-53)
Oil on canvas
c. 1740-50
México City, INBAL/Museo Nacional de Arte, Donación FONCA, 1991

At the start of the 17th century, most of society in Spain and its American territories regarded painters as
practitioners of a manual and mechanical craft. In reaction to this, artists vindicated their intellectual
status by using mythological, theological and historical arguments in both treatises and paintings. Just as
Zeus was considered a painter-creator in classical mythology, Christianity taught that God made the
world with mental images which could be equated to paintings. By virtue of his omnipotence, he

conceived Mary without sin and, according to some interpretations, painted the image of Guadalupe of
Mexico by using the roses collected by Juan Diego as pigments. The divine faculty for painting was
extended to Saint Luke, who was said to have painted the Madonna and Child in an image known as
Salus Populi Romani (Protector of the Roman People) preserved at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in
Rome. Its copies were “true likenesses” that retained their sacred character and demonstrated the
nobility of art.